The Nigerian Writing System
Professor Ogunleye Shakale tells me he teaches aeronautics at the University of Ibadan.
The reason for his confession is his great hope that I’ll help him lay a layer of asphalt on the access road to his house, which sits on a hill above Salami Estate in New Bodija—especially now, with the rainy season approaching.
Of course, I can’t help Professor Shakale. But we enjoy talking, and we become friends. He’s a wonderful man, even if there are some doubts about the authenticity of the “professor” title he proudly claims for himself.
He’s always well-dressed, in a dark three-piece suit, with a red handkerchief poking out of his left breast pocket. His English is excellent—thanks, he says, to the time he spent in London. He makes an effort to speak with a British accent. Not very successfully, of course.
To this day, I wonder how Professor Shakale managed to slip past the gate into my office. The instructions to the security guard were crystal clear: no visitors allowed without invitation—especially not 'professors' from the University of Ibadan.
But in retrospect, I’m glad the professor managed to sneak in. We end up chatting about all sorts of things—this and that, mostly duh and huh, but also on other topics.
Then one day, the professor, who is also an aviation expert, tells me he has a meeting next week in Lagos with the Honorable Federal Minister of Transport. He invites me to join him.
Coincidentally, I have meetings in Lagos that same week, and out of curiosity I decided to go along with the Professor, since meeting the Honorable Minister is a very-very great honor. At least until you meet him.
At 9 a.m., in hot and steamy Lagos, we set off together to Lagos Island, which sits inside the city of Lagos, which itself is inside Lagos State.
The drive from Ikeja to Lagos Island takes us four hours. Without the typical “go-slow,” it would be 20 minutes. But there’s no such thing as Lagos without a go-slow—just as there’s no rain without clouds.
In fact, it’s more likely to see rain without clouds than Lagos without a go-slow. For those unfamiliar: go-slow is Nigerian English for “traffic jam.” But, Traffic jam!
By the time we arrive at the Ministry of Transportation, it’s already 1:00 p.m. The professor introduces us to the minister’s secretary. She smiles, shows us to the waiting room, and says:
“The Honorable Minister will arrive any moment from now!”
Good news, I mutter to myself.
As usual, the day is hot and humid. There are six air conditioners in the waiting room. The secretary explains that none of them has worked for three years.
The floor is wet. Everyone is sweating. Lagos is near the equator, and the humidity is thick—you could lean on it. Even time itself seems to move slowly.
At 2:00 p.m., the professor asks the secretary, “Have you heard from the minister yet?”
She smiles:
“The Honorable Minister will arrive any moment from now.”
There are about fifteen people waiting—well-respected Lagosians chatting about different issues but also about this and that, holding the kind of conversations that drift around the room like steam.
No one seems to be in a hurry.
One Lagosian says to his neighbor, “The Oyinbos—the peeled people—they know so little.”
The professor nods. “Yes, but it’s just enough to destroy the world.”
Another man adds, “The more we know, the more we realize how little we know—and the more we know, the more dangerous it becomes.”
Clearly, waiting in the honorable minister’s reception room can be as enlightening as a lecture at the University of Ibadan.
By 3:00 p.m., even Lagosians are starting to lose patience. The professor walks back over to the secretary and politely asks her name. She says, “Jibola.” "Did you hear anything from the honorable minister?"
She replied:
“You must be patient. The Honorable Minister will arrive any moment from now.”
I step outside to stretch my legs and loosen up my joints. I happen to run into a familiar face.
I tell him we’ve been waiting for the minister since morning, and that Jibola keeps insisting:
“The Honorable Minister will arrive any moment from now.”
He chuckles. “That’s actually true—in theory. But I suggest you come back in three days. The Honorable Minister is currently in London.”
He pauses, then adds: “Of course, that doesn’t contradict what Jibola said. You must be patient. The Honorable Minister will arrive... any moment from now. For sure!"
The professor is staying in a cheap hotel in Ikeja. I’m in a guesthouse in Ilupeju. Patience is required here, I remind myself.
I use the days to see a dentist. The Nigerian dentist examines me and declares I need seven fillings.
I’m shocked. I’ve never needed a single filling in my life—and I had a check-up before coming to Nigeria.
Seven fillings?
I call my dentist back home. He says:
“With your teeth? The Nigerian dentist will probably drill seven holes just so he can do seven fillings. After all, you need holes to fill.”
Professor Shakale explains:
“The number of fillings you need has nothing to do with your teeth—it depends on what the dentist needs that day. He might have some extra expenses. Maybe school fees. Or rent. So he needs money. Naira.”
“To meet his budget,” the professor continues, “he calculates how many fillings he’ll need to perform. And naturally, he’ll drill as many holes as necessary to justify them. It’s really simple mathematics. Even a freshly arrived Oyinbo should understand that.”
Eventually, we hear the Honorable Minister of Transportation is finally back in town. So we return to his office.
Jibola welcomes us warmly. “I told you he’d come any moment, didn’t I?”
She enters the minister’s office and says something in Yoruba.
Jibola and the Honorable Minister of Transport are both Yoruba—an ancient and wonderful proud people, millions strong, with a rich culture spanning Nigeria and other parts of West Africa.
They have a tradition of speaking Yoruba to each other, which unfortunately makes it difficult for me to understand the conversation. I don’t speak Yoruba.
The Honorable Minister invites us in. After the he usual bows and greetings required by the state of affairs, I sit on a nearby couch and listen.
Professor Shakale introduces me as a friend from London, which is meant to legitimize my presence.
Of course, I don’t ask what they’re discussing. The Honorable Minister might suspect I want to know what they’re discussing, and in Nigeria, that could be considered disrespect —or worse, offensive.
From time to time, they toss in an English translation.
The Honorable Minister of Transportation and Professor Ogunleye Shakale discuss about the dire state of Nigeria Airways, the national airline.
Back in 1987, IATA suspended Nigeria Airways from the international clearinghouse, making it impossible for them to sell tickets on behalf of other airlines.
Some years earlier, a former transport minister—an army officer and respected politician—decided to dismiss the highly competent KLM team that had been successfully managing Nigeria Airways and operating the new Murtala Muhammed terminal. He sent them back to Amsterdam.
Why? He had two reasons for sending the Dutch team back to Holland.
First, because Nigerian staff could do the job just as well as the KLM peeled experts —perhaps even better.
Second, because the peeled Dutch team came from Holland, so it is simply reasonable to send them back to Holland.
And so, very quickly, the Nigerian carrier began accumulating significant losses and debts, that outstripped its revenues, which is nothing unusual at all, except that when aircrafts belong to the Nigeria Airways landed in Europe, they were detained or impounded in Europe for unpaid debt.
This, said the professor, was a rude and impolite display of peeled European arrogance. These people simply didn’t understand Nigeria at all.
In light of the shameless conduct of the peeled European, Professor Ogunleye Shakale shared his frustration with the honorable minister and blamed the peeled European for their unfair tactics.
The professor is angry and asked “How did Columbus discover America,” he asked, “when millions of people were already living there many years before he arrive? And he thought it was India! What ignorance!”
Then the professor made a bold claim:
All of Nigeria Airways’ problems could have been avoided—if Nigeria had had its own writing system.
While other civilizations developed writing systems thousands of years ago, to improve communication between people and nations, in Nigeria it was unnecessary.
Villages and communities in Nigeria communicated perfectly well with each other without writing. Nigerians are highly communicative, resourceful people that always find solutions. Or not. And anyway, they had nothing to write about.
Later, I asked the professor "why there was no writing system in Nigeria?” He told me there were two reasons: One — they could not write. Two — they could not read.
Prof. Ogunleye Shakale clarifies his remarks and shared with the Honorable Minister childhood memories from a village somewhere near Ogbomosho.
Back then, he reveals to the Honorable Minister, they already had advanced technology in his village that allowed fast and cheap travel—especially to London.
The professor explained the unique technology advantages: no need for planes, no expensive and polluting fuel, minimal operating costs, and best of all—no need favors from the peeled Europeans.
The professor severely criticized Western technology of the peeled Europeans for forcing us to fly long distances in expensive airplanes that tie us to foreign systems. “Their airplanes,” he said, “are inefficient, overpriced, and forcing us, Nigerians, to be dependent on the whims of the peeled Europeans.”
The Honorable Minister listened with interest. “How can we implement this fantastic technology from the village near Ogbomosho for the benefit of all Nigeria?” he asked.
Professor Shakale sighed. “Ah, Honorable Minister—that’s the problem!
"We didn't have writing system, so we couldn't keep record of the details and the process required for that technology."
He recalled one unforgettable moment from his childhood.
A village respected elder—maybe even the chief himself—lit a special fire with special properties. Thick smoke billowed up.
And in that moment, the chief vanished into the smoke.
Moments later, he reappeared out of the smoke. Just like that.
Professor Shakale said that although he was a little boy then, he vividly remembers well the chief told the villagers: “I was in London. I’m back.”
Yes, London. Very simple. Direct. No airplane. No wahala.
As we left the office of the Honorable Minister of Transport, Professor Ogunleye Shakale, aviation expert from Ibadan, turned to me and said:
“What a pity we had no writing system in Ogbomosho. We could have recorded the details of that technology —for the benefit of future generations in Nigeria, and Africa as a whole.”
“And who,” he added, “really needs those Oyinbo airplanes anyway?”